Monday, September 21, 2015

The Experiment: OpenStreets Bangalore



There has a been a lot of heated discussion around the Open Streets Bengaluru's event at the HSR Layout on the 20th of September. Haven't seen such a heated discussion around a "citizen's" initiative in Bangalore for a long time. So thought I will add my views to the discussion. Why me, because I am a part activist and part business operator in HSR Layout.

While Bangalore Mirror has declared the event as a success, I do not see a criteria defined for success. If you have to deploy "225 traffic policemen", "200 law and order officials" and "75 home guards" to keep the vehicles out in about 6 sq. KM area and a population of 24749 people, that makes it a policeman for every 50 people in that area, I would call it a curfew and nothing else. In addition to this, there were 200 volunteers and BMTC staff to help with the event. So you decide whether you want to call it a success.

I haven't seen a statistic for the number of people who participated but I would like to take a wild guess (from my experiences in helping/participating in some of the Cycle Day/Kere Habba events in my neighborhood), the participation would not have been more than a few thousand people through the day. Out of this, how many were local residents and how many came from outside of HSR Layout would be interesting to know. Considering that it was such a big deal among the activist group, I would guess at least 50% of them were from outside of HSR. Now how did they get there, I am sure a lot of them took their cars (I have friends who braved it in a cycle but I think they are exceptions) since they cannot get the family/children to ride on the Bangalore roads. I can say this with confidence because I would not have mustered the courage to take my daughter cycling to HSR from Arakere where I live, of-course I did not go cause I am sitting at home with a fractured ankle.  If we take the remaining 50% as local residents, there were at very best 1 or 2 thousand people. Would 1-2 thousand people have not walked around in HSR Layout without the OpenStreets initiative, the answer is for you to keep.

And before I start sounding all negative, let me double clarify that I am a great supporter of this initiative, but I think this one failed on one count. In the overzealous effort to make it a success, it became and event of exclusion instead of becoming an event for inclusion. As a lot of people pointed out, in an attempt to assert the freedom, it did encroach on others freedom.  Why did it end up becoming that way, I do not know, but here are few thoughts collected from various discussions, interlaced with my "deep" insights :-)
  1. It blocked too large an area which was not required. It was disproportionate to the number of people participating/supporting the cause.
  2. Just because you block the road one day, people are not going to buy cycles. They are just not going to go out. Effectively that is what happened. There is too much learning to do in terms of understanding the BMTC and the route and the stop etc for that one day. The easy thing is just stay put where you are.
  3. Not everyone wants to go out and cycle, skateboard, run, dance on the street. So we need to have more reasons for people to come in an join the initiative. Unfortunately in India, we grow up and once we do that we don't do stuff like the above "which is mostly for kids/teens."
  4. Although RWAs were on board (not sure now many have sway over residents anyway), I am not so sure about the local businesses were taken into confidence. Businesses rely on the weekend for 80% of their sales and that suffered. The businesses should have been integrated into the event. 
  5. The information was not adequate for an event this size where a 6 sq km area was completely blocked to traffic. There was a confusion about emergency response, airport shuttles, timings of the event, areas in which the activities were happening and a lot more.
While the activist in me wants to say that these are all excuses for the people who don't want to change, the businessman in me stops me from saying that. If we have to get these initiatives to succeed, we have to make friends, not enemies. From this experiment, we have gone close to being branded as extremists and we should definitely address this issue next time around. 
all the packets of instant noodles tested in the state-run laboratory were contaminated - See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/food-inspectors-order-recall-of-maggi-noodles-say-it-contains-excess-lead/#sthash.VYGafolG.dpuf
all the packets of instant noodles tested in the state-run laboratory were contaminated - See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/food-inspectors-order-recall-of-maggi-noodles-say-it-contains-excess-lead/#sthash.VYGafolG.dpuf
all the packets of instant noodles tested in the state-run laboratory were contaminated - See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/food-inspectors-order-recall-of-maggi-noodles-say-it-contains-excess-lead/#sthash.VYGafolG.dpuf
The Food Safety and Drug Administration (FDA) in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh said high lead content was found during routine tests on two dozen packets of instant noodles, manufactured by Nestle in India. - See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/food-inspectors-order-recall-of-maggi-noodles-say-it-contains-excess-lead/#sthash.VYGafolG.dpuf
The Food Safety and Drug Administration (FDA) in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh said high lead content was found during routine tests on two dozen packets of instant noodles, manufactured by Nestle in India. - See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/food-inspectors-order-recall-of-maggi-noodles-say-it-contains-excess-lead/#sthash.VYGafolG.dpuf

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